The present invention relates to three-point safety belt harnesses employed for restraining a vehicle passenger in a seat during an emergency condition and particularly to the connector fitting suspended on the continuous safety belt having two of the anchor points and which is anchored to a third anchor, normally inboard of the vehicle seat by a releasable connection between the connector fitting and a buckle connected to such inboard anchor by a safety belt strap or the like.
The so called "three-point" safety belt harnesses presently employed in the automobile industry generally include a first safety belt which is anchored at a first lower end to the vehicle B-pillar near the floor adjacent the outboard side of the passenger seat and the other end being wound upon a conventional emergency locking safety belt retractor provided on the B-pillar at approximately shoulder height relative to the passenger seated on the vehicle seat. The connector fitting normally entrained on the safety belt is provided so that when the connector fitting is coupled with a mating connector, such as a conventional push button buckle, the connector cinches the lap portion of the belt to hold the passenger in his seat. In such prior art construction of connector fittings, it is possible that the fitting will impede the retraction of the safety belt onto the retractor when the connector fitting engages the webbing guide after being released from the associated buckle by the passenger. This possible condition of having slack portions of the safety belt hanging loosely adjacent the B-pillar is more likely to occur with the modern approach of reducing the spring tension of the retractor associated with the belt in order to reduce the normal spring tension applied across the chest of the vehicle passenger by the safety belt when in use. It is desirable to have the so called "softly-sprung" belt system to reduce the pressure on the vehicle passenger's chest and to allow the passenger a more free upper body movement than might be afforded by a stronger spring in the retraction mechanism which could draw the safety belt through the connector fitting and associated web guide into the retractor when the belt is not in use.
It is thus become desirable to have a free-running cinching connector which will allow upper body movement of the chest portion of a three-point safety belt harness employing a so called "softly-sprung" belt system as is presently known in the art while keeping the lower body portion of the passenger securely in place on the seat through the cinching action of the connector fitting when in use more particularly, it would be desirable in such an arrangement to have the connector provided so that when the belt is not in use the connector will be suspended on the safety belt in such a manner as to ride up to the belt guide, generally adjacent the shoulder of the vehicle passenger when seated in the vehicle seat, but allow the webbing to pass substantially freely through to be wound up on a safety belt retractor which may be of a relatively low spring tension or softly-sprung nature as is known in the art.